7. Fedora Live Images
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The Fedora release includes several live ISO images in addition to the traditional installation images. These ISO images are bootable, and you can burn them to media and use them to try out Fedora. They also include a feature that allows you to install the Live image content to your hard drive for persistence and higher performance.
7.1. Available Images
For a complete list of current spins available, and instructions for using them, refer to:
7.2. Usage Information
To boot from the Live image, insert it into your computer and
restart. To log in and use the desktop environment, enter the
username fedora. Hit
Enter at the password prompt, since there is no
password on this account. The Live images do not automatically
login so users can select a preferred language. After logging in,
if you wish to install the contents of the live image to your hard
drive, click on the Install to Hard Drive
icon on the desktop.
7.3. Text Mode Installation
You can do a text mode installation of the Live images using the
liveinst command in the console.
7.4. Direct Installation
You can add liveinst or textinst
as a boot loader option to perform a direct installation without
booting up the live CD/DVD.
7.4.1. USB Booting
Another way to use these Live images is to put them on a USB
stick. To do this, install the livecd-tools
package from the development repository. Then, run the
livecd-iso-to-disk script:
/usr/bin/livecd-iso-to-disk /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1
Replace /dev/sdb1 with the partition
where you want to put the image.
This is not a destructive process; any data you currently have on your USB stick is preserved.
7.4.2. Live USB Persistence
Support for persistent changes with a Live image exists for Fedora 9. The primary use case is booting from a Live image on a USB flash drive and storing changes to that same device. To do this, download the Live image and then run the following command:
livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb 512 /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1
Replace /dev/sdb1 with the
partition where you want to put the image.
Replace 512 with the desired size in
megabytes of the persistent data, or overlay. The
livecd-iso-to-disk shell script is stored in
the LiveOS directory at
the top level of the CD image. The USB media must have
sufficient free space for the Live image, plus the overlay, plus
any other data to be stored on the media.
7.4.3. Tool Changes
Work has continued to better integrate the Live images with
the rest of the system, and improve the tools used for
building them. The livecd-creator utility
now provides an API for building alternative front-ends, as
well as tools for other types of images.
7.4.4. Differences From a Regular Fedora Install
The following items are different from a normal Fedora install with the live images.
Live images provide a subset of packages available in the regular DVD image. Both connect to the same repository that has all the packages.
SSH is disabled by default. SSH is disabled because the default username in the Live images does not have any password. However, installation to hard disk prompts for creating a new username and password.
Live image installations do not allow any package selection or upgrade capability since they copy the entire file system from media or USB disks, to the hard disk. After the installation is complete, and your system has been rebooted, you can add and remove packages as desired with the Add/Remove Packages tool,
yum, or the other software management tools.Live images do not work on
i586architecture.